


Remainder

by Awesomeist0



Series: If Only [1]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Almost kayfabe compliant. Events are the same but locations are different, Bayley is a good friend, But mostly because he's worried about his friend, Fluff and Angst, Infidelity, KO is an asshole, M/M, Morning Cuddles, Pining, Rating May Change, Sami doesn't deserve this, Unrequited Love, Walking In On Someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-08-30 03:01:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16756582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awesomeist0/pseuds/Awesomeist0
Summary: Finn and Seth fall in love.  Too bad Finn's already dating Sami Zayn.





	1. Finn

October 22, 2018  
Providence, RI

Upbeat smile #43 fell off of his lips at the almost inaudible click of the locker room door behind him. He’d been always smiling lately; always always smiling even as things were fracturing and crashing all around him. Smarks were beginning to call him out on it on social media lately. Too, too many tweets from nameless trolls with CM Punk profile pictures, criticizing him both for selling out and not possessing enough talent to earn the inflated paycheck he was cashing. He was a bland placeholder, only ever receiving air time because he was an attractive man coupled with the times that were few and far between that he could use his demon gimmick.

His brain itself was throbbing. Pulsing behind hastily closed eyelids as he tried to hold back all his frustration. Even his match tonight had been a joke. Oh he was grateful to have won, but it was little more than an afterthought wrapped in a one-sided beating as Lio Rush offered taunts as abrasive as nails on a chalkboard. He was the underdog. A threat to no one; barely allowed to hold his own unless he wore the body paint and headdress. His ribs still throbbed from Lashley’s graceless kicks, almost in time with the hype man's exaggerated pronunciation of his name.

_//laaaaaaaaaashley! laaaaaaaaaaaashley!//_

He wanted to rage. To throw his gear around the room screaming because why, why was his career allowed to go stagnant? All of his accomplishments both in and out of the company...fuck, he sold enough merch and didn’t make waves. But to the powers that be, it didn’t matter.

And he wasn’t alone.

Seth Rollins sat still; so still as he stared down at the neatly folded tag title in his lap. The nameplate had obviously yet to be changed, as Dolph Ziggler’s name and logo seemed to catch the halogenic light and throw it back at the shadows like the moon. With his head down and the long dark hair obscuring his face, he couldn’t really get a read on how the older man was feeling. Until something seemed to snap within him and Seth slumped forward, as if the entire weight of the world had just been thrust upon his shaking shoulders and he was shattering under the weight of it.

His own heart began to tear as he watched this man, usually so strong and sure and cocky, break down right in front of him. The corner of his mind that clung to self preservation screamed at him not to care. He’d forgiven Seth for the accident years ago. He really had. But there had been moments when he felt at his weakest, when he remembered the way the Universal Title felt around his waist or against his

_//shattered//_

  
shoulder. When he had it all for only about twenty four hours, only to have the pieces fracture and shatter, like a jigsaw puzzle missing a handful of shapes. It wasn’t Seth’s fault. But how was it his own fault if since that moment, things had never been complete?

He tried. God help him, he did. Between his charity work and engaging with the fans coupled with mentoring the new guys, he was trying to construct a new normal where everything fit and it didn’t feel as though there was a huge piece of himself missing.

Even Sami couldn’t help him.

He shoved that thought out of his head as quickly as it had come. This was neither the time nor place, and if he allowed himself to dwell on his

_//boyfriend? lover? the person who loves you with the entirety of his huge, perfect heart but you want nothing to do with him and now you’ve been leading him on for close to three fucking years because you’re a coward//_

friend, the tears he’d been trying to force down would bubble over. Everything was wrong. Seeing Seth like this, curled in on himself as if he could actually retreat back to a state of nothingness, was just further proof that everything was broke. Saying nothing, he shouldered his duffle bag, as silently as he could.

But something betrayed him. Perhaps he wasn’t actually as stealthy as he thought. Perhaps he was actually stomping around the room as gracelessly as an elephant but he couldn’t hear it over the sound of his own heart shattering in his ears. Whatever the reason, he felt all the blood slowly drain from his face when Seth snapped his head up like a frightened animal to stare at him.

He never wanted to see those eyes again.

Not because they belonged to Seth. But because they were full of so much undiluted pain that just looking into them actually hurt. His body felt hollow; a winter wind whipping around inside of paper skin and threatening to rip him at the seams. The other man wasn’t actually crying. But based on the red eyes and tears cutting down his cheeks, he’d only just stopped.

This wasn’t a sight for his eyes.

He scrambled to pull upbeat smile #44 to his lips, but try as he might, he couldn’t force his muscles to twist. He’d worn a variation of that smile for almost three solid years, and he felt naked without it. It was his shield, something he could hold up and deflect all of his various uncertainties before they could go and crash over him like a wave. If they couldn’t touch him, they couldn’t hurt him. So he felt his personality beginning to change and split like the colors of leaves in late fall. There was happy-go-lucky Finn. The one who took goofy selfies with his friends and pretended with all of his heart that it was real. Not as crude and graceless as the inexpensive Halloween mask it practically was. There was driven, slightly crazed Finn that would only ever come out in the ring. Even if only to lose or just fill time between the “important” storylines, he would always push himself hard. Almost recklessly so. As it was, his ribs were still throbbing from a combination of an ill timed bump and the moment when

_//”laaaaaaaaashley! laaaaaaaaaaaashley!!”//_

stomped far too roughly on his chest. Bobby’d apologized, of course, and even if there was no sincerity in it, it just didn’t matter anymore.

And then.

There was his soft smile. His sweet smile. The one he’d cobbled together shortly after Sami started spending the nights in his arms and neither could continue pretending that things between them were normal. He’d just look at Sami, not trusting himself to move or speak or even breathe. Things had shifted from a mutual desire to keep away the clinging loneliness to something else so quickly, it was almost as though he’d simply blinked and went from having a friend with benefits to a lover. He should have put a stop to it right away. That would have been the decent thing to do. But he was afraid. Of the loneliness, the feeling of being so unimportant that no one ever really cared about what happened to him. Sami was a good guy and on the nights they were actually able to spend together, he’d stay awake late into the night, clinging to Sami and watching him sleep and trying to convince his treacherous heart that he actually felt anything for the man in his arms.

Because he didn’t.

Sami loved him. He’d said the words more times than he could count and even if the words went unspoken, there was no hiding the obvious emotion in every touch. Every kiss. He’d mimic this all as best he could, attempting to catalog everything the younger man did and regurgitating it when appropriate. He’d remembered the look in Sami’s eyes when he first used the word “love.” So bright and full of wonder, as if he’d been offered everything he ever wished for all at once. That was the look he’d try his best to copy. But he felt wooden. Whenever he’d catch his expression in photos with Sami, he’d feel terror bubbling up within him because that was it; there’s no way Sami would be able to look at the two of them together and not see this.

Sami wasn’t here now. Seth was. All thoughts of his lover were shoved aside as he just looked at the other man, trying to force himself to ignore the few tears that stubbornly refused to stop falling. His hand shaking, he reached out to brush them off of Seth’s damp cheek, the tips only barely making contact with the skin below. He was so scared; scared and out of his element and if his hand left the other man’s cheek for only a moment, he’d drown. God, he’d prayed for this feeling. This tingly-tightening in the depth of his heart, his body thrumming with electricity and pulsing with every beat of his heart. Every beat of the other man’s, because the longer he stood there with his hand burning sweetly against Seth’s face, the more he was sure they they were one and the same. He’d wanted this so much for Sami. But even as he saw the rapture and love in the younger man’s eyes, he felt nothing when his skin touched Sami’s.

But Seth.

As soon as his hand made the most tentative of contact with Seth’s skin, he could see the abrupt shift in the broken man’s eyes. The deep, clinging pain seemed to vanish as he drew a shuddering breath, pressing his face flush against Finn’s hand. He needed to pull away. To flee while he still could, because if Sami were to ever find out about this, it would destroy him. He took Seth’s hint and cupped the stubbled cheek fully, skimming his fingers down his jaw to trace small circles against the top of his throat. “Why?” he breathed, trying not to notice the small burst of heat as the younger man lightly flicked his tongue against the pad of his thumb.

Seth shrugged. His cocky exterior seemed to be building back up around him. It had been irritating before. But as he watched it beginning to materialize, brick by brick with every thump of his own heart as it slammed against his chest, he began to realize that this was just a mask for Seth. He had his grins. Seth had his attitude. But the easy standoffishness never reached his eyes. He could look into the dark wet orbs and see a pain so choking he was shocked that Seth could still breathe. So he would breathe for him.

He could have asked for permission. But if Seth refused him; if the hurt in his eyes grew more cavernous and if Finn had to acknowledge that he himself helped put it there, he didn’t know if his heart would be able to keep beating. Gently...so very gently but still nowhere near gentle enough for the man so close to his arms, he pressed his lips to the shaking line of Seth’s own mouth. He didn’t try to deepen the kiss; that wasn’t important to him right now. The only thing that he cared about was wrapping his arms around the other man. Laying a hand against the side of his ribcage as he felt him breathe. In and out, the sensation of his lungs expanding and contracting bringing him more comfort than anything in the world had a right to. If Seth was breathing. If his heart was beating, he’d survive. Somehow, that was the only thing that mattered to Finn.

“Don’t break,” he mouthed against Seth’s lips. Everything was falling apart around them. He felt a tear slide down his cheek, but he wasn’t sure if it fell from his face or Seth’s. He traced his fingers up and down the protruding ladder of the younger man’s rib cage, barely able to process everything he was feeling. Kissing Seth. Even as chaste as it was, even if it was only because he wanted to feel his breath. His heartbeat, and this was the only way he could justify it to himself. He felt a large hand sear through the fabric of his well worn t-shirt, fingers tentatively brushing across his defined stomach muscles. It shouldn’t have tickled. Sami loved his stomach; loved to touch and kiss him there and suck dark purple marks into one or more of his abs as if marking his territory. It never felt like much of anything. He’d never dreamed that Seth’s touch could have been so gentle. Hesitant but gaining more confidence with each of Finn’s own touches until they were gasping against each other, his nerve endings practically blazing as Seth’s hand slipped beneath his shirt to touch him directly. He shuddered, feeling his heart swell just a bit more as the man in his arms lightly splayed his fingers in the recessed valley between his pecs. If he had been slightly less cynical, Finn would swear that Seth too wanted to feel his heart beating.

“Need you.” Seth’s warm breath ghosted lightly against his lips, making Finn groan and press against him. He couldn’t do this. Not with Sami at their shared apartment, injured and miserable and pining for him and the moments they could spend together. If he was a decent person, he’d pull away from Seth. Go back to Sami; forget the few moments in which he felt a touch that made his very insides burn. Go back to pretending that he loved his dear friend. Because his friend loved him, and really why should he let something as his selfish desire to actually feel something for the man he tied himself to ruin what had to be something that Sami cherished? Seth seemed to sense that his mind was wandering because he touched his chest harder, his thumb millimeters away from making heated and delicious contact with Finn’s nipple. “Wanted you for so long. Since fucking rehab.”

He tried to cut off a sob, the sound strangling and dying against Seth’s mouth. “You should have told me.”

“Can’t.” The younger man dropped his mouth to Finn’s throat, the little nibbles and licks adding gasoline to a fire that he didn’t want to extinguish. “You’re with Zayn.”

Hearing his boyfriend’s name should have filled him with a horrible and consuming shame. But it didn’t. While the thought of Sami was usually enough to make his pulse race and his conscience scream about what a selfish fuck he was, tonight, it just didn’t matter. It was like Seth’s touch was an anesthetic, numbing and sweet and burning away anything that wasn’t here in this locker room with them. “Still with him. What changed?”

Seth pulled away for a second, and in that insignificant moment of time, he could see the pain flooding back full force in his eyes. “Everything fell apart,” he said sadly, his hand moving up and over Finn’s chest and not stopping. Never stopping. “Even if it’s just once, I need to feel something that doesn’t hurt.”

Memories he’d been trying so hard to fight whirled around him, threatening to constrict his airways and make him choke, as they always did. A warm hand on his back or against his arm. Whispered words of comfort that seemed to be completely out of character. Dark, dark eyes watching him. Always watching him, looking at him with a brightness that he didn’t want to acknowledge because it terrified him. Seth had always been there for him, even if it was something he couldn’t admit even to himself. He…

No.

Oh God.

  
He wanted to knock Seth’s hand off of his chest because he didn’t trust his heart to stay silent. The more Seth touched him, the more certain he was that this had been what he was yearning for. The missing piece at the core of his being. It was so wrong, but how could it be wrong? He felt his heart beginning to throb against the younger man’s hand, as if trying to break free from his ribcage to feel his touch directly. I love you, he wanted to say; could even feel his heart screaming with each and every beat. Seth leaned forward to brush his nose against Finn’s, the contact light and teasing and not nearly enough to keep him from whimpering in frustration.

“I know,” Seth whispered, his lips so so close to his. If he leaned forward just a fraction of an inch...they’d be touching again. Touching and sharing breath, and Finn was briefly terrified that he was responding to his heart’s unspoken cry. He felt Seth’s hand beginning to move again, skimming from one pec to the other beneath Finn’s shirt. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

The teasing dance of skin against skin made him gasp, although the pain full force in the other man’s eyes managed to squash the heat that was blazing between them. Finn reached out to cup Seth’s cheek again, briefly overwhelmed at just how beautiful the younger man was. “Wish I could,” he muttered, thoughts of the Universal Title and his time on the shelf blurring with the forgotten moments of their time together in rehab. They were barely friends, that’s what he told Sami. It didn’t matter if Seth would rub his back after a particularly grueling physical therapy session. It didn’t matter if he was flung from sleep by the sounds of Seth’s screams, desperate and bloodcurdling and it was only when Finn held him that he felt peace. So many little moments. So many chances for his life to be different, but deep down, he knew that nothing would change. Seth pulled away at Finn’s words, looking confused and just a touch past annoyed. “If I hated you, it wouldn’t hurt so much to lose you. Even if I never had you to begin with.”

He wanted to bite his tongue as hard as he could because these were not words he should be speaking to another man. Seth’s grin was the sun, and even though his eyes were still leaking, Finn couldn’t help but feel warmed by his rays. “You could.”

“Hate you?”

“No.” Seth traced a design against his chest, apparently finding it more important to continue touching him than to wipe the tears out of his own eyes. “Even if it’s only for tonight. Please.” He nuzzled the side of Finn’s neck, making him feel like a lioness who had just earned the submission of her mate. “Be mine.”

Those two words doubled and quadrupled to eternity, flying around his fevered brain until it was all he could think about. All he could hear, something that had become as much of a driving beat in his body as his breath and heartbeat. For the first time in so long, he felt an actually genuine smile slowly stretch across his lips. “I already am.”


	2. Seth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning.

 

_ “It’s all right.”  He couldn’t move, not even to curl up into a small ball to protect himself.  He deserved this. Dean could only glare at him, his face twisted into something he couldn’t recognise.  Anger mostly. Disgust. He liked to hope that there was a flicker of remorse hiding in his eyes, but if there was it was snuffed out like a candle as the one sided beatdown continued. _

 

_ Dean was livid. _

 

_ He was screaming nonsense, alternating between grabbing Seth by the hair to force him to meet his crazed eyes and slamming him with all the strength he had to the mat below.  And when that wasn’t enough...when the pain slithered in like a serpent and he couldn’t even lift his head, Dean actually ripped the padding to the side of the ring to slam him onto the concrete flooring. _

 

_ He couldn’t focus his eyes.  He couldn’t move at all, except to grasp sadly towards his former friend as if actually expecting a hug.  “It’s all right.” But it wasn't. His heart was shattered. Laying in twisted fragments along with the broken chairs and other implements of destruction.  “It’s…” _

 

“Baby.”  He felt the shattered pieces of his heart beginning to pull back together as Finn’s warmth seemed to seep into his pores.  Since Seth was taller, logic dictated that Finn be the one that was cuddled close. Protected.

 

But that wasn’t what either of them needed.

The older man was the one that lay propped up against a mini mountain of pillows, holding Seth tightly against his bare collarbone.  He shuddered deliciously as his lover skimmed fingers through his hair, holding him close. Keeping Seth’s head pressed flush against his chest, so Finn’s heart and breathing were all he could hear.  All he could sense. “I’m here.”

 

He did his best to bite back a laugh.  Yeah, Finn was here now. But that was going to change.  Finn wasn’t his. It didn’t matter how badly he wanted him, how his very soul craved the touch of the Irishman.  He had no claims on him. Instead of responding, Seth pressed his face against Finn’s chest, hoping he wouldn’t feel the tears he knew were falling.  He felt so weak. And he hated himself, because he needed  _ this _ so much.  And he knew, knew with every last bit of his broken heart that this would never happen again.

 

Not that all that much had.  Scattered clothes, and hands and mouths that wanted to be everywhere at once.  Mostly whispers in the darkness; words that wove the story of a forever that he wanted with all his heart but knew that Finn was powerless to give him.  It couldn’t ever happen. He could feel the certainty of it deep in his bones, and it hurt. Each touch felt like the last, and even as they lay here together, with Seth clinging to the Irishman with all of the strength that remained in him, he was waiting for Finn to disappear.  

 

“Wouldn’t have guessed you were a cuddler.”  Finn’s accent was thicker than usual, tinged with sleep and something darker.  

 

“ ‘m not.”  He shuddered as his bedmate skimmed a hand up and down his chest, toying with the smattering of dark hair between his pecs and down his stomach.  He was filthy from last night; they both were. Sweat and saliva and ropes of dried cum stained both of their torsos, but he wouldn’t leave Finn for the few precious moments it would take to shower.  Because  _ then _ he would disappear.  Vanish from this nondescript hotel room, out of his dreams and back to the real world with his loving partner.  And Seth had to accept it. Even if his heart would never recover.

 

“You haven’t moved at all since last night.”  There was a touch of teasing warmth dancing amongst the syllables of his brogue.  “And I think you drooled on me.”

 

He exhaled huffily, feeling himself helplessly slipping back into his Seth  _ Freaking _ Rollins persona.  And he didn’t want that here.  His head felt thick and heavy, as if the grey matter had been replaced with something viscous, like raw pancake batter.  “Fuck you.” 

 

“Someone’s grumpy this morning.”  He felt Finn pull lightly on his hair and chuckle as if he’d made a fantastic joke.  But there was nothing funny here. After spending the night in his arms, he hoped with all of his heart that everything would look better.  Brighter. But everything hurt. He pressed his face closer to Finn’s chest, trying to commit every single thing between them to his memory.  Because that way, when he left and Seth was alone, as he always would be, at least he’d have the memories. If he closed his eyes and thought about it hard enough, would he be able to recall exactly what Finn felt like? Just thinking about their inevitable parting was too much to bear, and he bit the inside of his own wrist to muffle the sobs that he couldn’t fight.  But Finn knew. And even though it broke his heart more, he pressed his face to the top of Seth’s head to nuzzle and kiss the messy hairline. “Baby, talk to me. Is this about Dean?”

 

His former teammate’s name had no part in this bed.  Or in Seth’s life, as far as he was concerned. “Forget it.”  It was so hard to force the words past the choking wall of his tears and the reddened skin of his wrist.  He knew that he had to let go of Finn. Their night was over; daylight was beginning to stream aggressively through the small gap in the blackout curtains.  The sun would always chase away his dreams. Finn would be no exception.

 

Gentle, almost aggravatingly gentle hands cupped his cheeks again, even as Seth tried to shift away and hide in the older man’s chest.  He didn’t want Finn to see him crying again. “What can I do to help you?”

He couldn’t think of anything to say.  And it didn’t even matter, because in that moment Finn’s cell phone rang.  Harsh and tinny, and it hurt more than he could have fathomed when the other man released him to fumble through his discarded jeans pockets to retrieve it.  Seth curled into a tiny ball against the pillows, trying to disappear into the soft white linens that smelled too much like  _ him _ .  The tears flowed without ceasing, flowed like the raindrops against the hotel window as he bit his wrist harder, the kernel of pain the only thing that kept him from shattering completely.  That could wait until he was well and truly alone.

 

“Hello?” Finn’s voice was soft, almost lilting and he could hear the ghost of a smile in his words.  Which meant that he had to be talking to Sami. Fucking Sami Zayn. He wanted to hate the other man so badly, wanted to hate his association with Dean back in CHIKARA and wanted to hate his stupid flat caps and ska music, and especially hate him because he had the one thing that Seth yearned for with all of his heart.  

 

He jumped without meaning to when Finn’s hand settled against the tattooed column of his spine.  Nimble fingers seemed to skate up and down the bumps, tracing the kanji there and soothing him like a skittish animal.  He tried not to listen to the conversation between them, focusing only on the other man’s soft touch. The tears would not cease, but Finn’s touch at least chased away the choking sobs with the same deftness as his nightmare earlier that morning.  Sami was perfect. He was so kind to everyone, even the asshole fans who mocked him for being little more than a glorified jobber. He was genuinely good. A fucking saint who somehow ended up with a demon. Everyone, everyone who had ever worked with him in any fucking promotion from here to Japan could do nothing except sing his praises.  Fuck, Finn deserved someone like him. 

 

“When are you going to be home?” Obviously, Seth couldn’t hear the answer on the other end of the line, but even the question shattered yet another piece of his heart beyond repair.   _ They _ had a home.  A life, and it would only be a matter of time before they became a family.  Sami had been injured a few months back, and although he was due to have surgery to get back in fighting shape, this could possibly be the end to his career.  And then Finn would retire as well, because of course he would. The WWE had been treating him like shit, and the two of them could go off to join the rest of the Bullet Club or something and Seth would be alone.  Even though he was already alone. “If you want, I’ll meet you in Birmingham before the surgery ends. Stay with you while you recover.” Finn’s fingertips pushed harder against his back, almost to the point of bruising, but he didn’t care.  He wanted the bruises. He wanted to be able to look at the marks in the mirror, if he could, and think back of the one night where he had everything. At least until they faded. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

 

As faint as it was, Seth clearly heard Sami close the call with “I love you.”

 

But Finn didn’t speak the words back.

 

Maybe he was just being kind.  Not wanting to actually force him to hear the words, the three words he wanted to claim for himself.  Because he couldn’t allow himself to hope for anything else. So much had been taken from him, and he didn’t think he could handle to get his hopes up only to have them dashed.  He felt the gentle scratch of Finn’s beard against his lower back, followed by a sweet wet warmth as his mouth opened and closed against his tattoos. “Please don’t cry anymore.”  The words seemed to reverberate into Seth’s skin, sinking deep within to strike true into his very soul. 

 

The request almost made him angry.  What right...what  _ fucking _ right did Finn have to ask that of him? He wasn’t the one who lived for the tiniest scraps of Seth’s affection, be it a kind word or smile or just a stupid tag on twitter.  Finn didn’t know what it was like to live without the person he loved; didn’t try to trick his stupid heart at every possible chance into believing that he could live without him.  He’d been infatuated with him ever since he moved up from NXT, and when Seth injured him with that godforsaken buckle-bomb at Summerslam...he could barely force himself to breathe for months.  Finn, being the amazing man he was, maintained that it wasn’t Seth’s fault. But even still, there were moments when they were backstage when he could feel the despair rolling off of him in waves.  

 

What he didn’t know.  What he  _ couldn’t _ have known was that he’d never had a chance with Finn.  Because the playing field had never been level. 

 

He already belonged to Sami.

 

Seth remembered the horrible night the truth came out.  It was backstage at a Raw taping, and following a grueling match all Seth wanted was a warm shower to soothe his aching muscles.  But what he saw in the locker room broke him.

 

He only saw a glimpse, a glimpse of what he most wanted but could never have.  Finn and Sami were there. Together. The redhead was enfolded tightly in Finn’s embrace as the Irishman kissed him with an intensity Seth had ever seen.  Finn’s back was to him so he didn’t have to see the look in his eyes, but Sami...Sami was enraptured. He actually seemed to glow with each of Finn’s kisses, his beautiful smile getting larger and larger until eventually it had to burst.  He had to leave, wanted to run from this scene as fast as he could but his body stubbornly refused to cooperate. He was frozen. 

 

And then he heard it.

 

So quiet, barely audible over the desperate mewling gasps that dripped from Sami’s lips and the sound of Seth’s own breaking heart.  Just three words, three words steeped in Finn’s delicious accent. “I love you.”

 

Sami cried.  And only then was Seth able to run, feeling his body shake with sobs that he couldn’t explain.   The feeling was unlike any he'd experienced, his entire body hollowed out and turned to glass and just a second away from shattering. The chills that overtook him had Seth spending the next day in bed, shuddering and trying to keep warm beneath the scratchy hotel sheets.  Cesaro thought it had to be the flu, with the way Seth shivered even wearing his warmest clothes and couldn’t manage to support his own body weight without falling. But Seth knew better. He still remembered the way those words sounded, even if those were ones that he would never hear.

 

_ //i love you.  i love you, i love you, i// _

 

His face was flushed, hot and sticky with sweat and tears as he pushed it beneath the mountain of pillows.  “Why are you still here?” He wasn’t even sure if Finn could hear him, or if his voice was too distorted. 

 

A wet warmth settled against the center of his back, and Seth realized with a sense of horror that the older man was crying as well.  He felt the puffs of Finn’s warm breath against his tattooed skin as he slowly broke down. Seth pulled away quickly, his heart roaring in his chest and knocking his lover’s head off of his back as he sat up.  “Don’t,” Finn wept, his ocean blue eyes bloodshot. “Please, don’t shut me out.”

 

He felt like the absolute worst person on the planet.  “I’m sorry,” Seth whispered, kissing his damp cheeks. The tears fell faster than he could kiss them, but he tried to chase each of them away.  Finn tasted of salt and despair, a clinging loneliness that seemed to echo the howling chasm at the center of his own being. “But you’re not mine.”  He wanted to forget about that, wanted to push it away and just enjoy the few sweet remaining moments pressed to Finn’s chest. Even there, in the safest place he’d ever been, Seth could still find no peace.

 

“I could be.”  His eyes were so bright, even through the ethereal veil of tears.  He knew the other man didn’t intend it to, but these words cut him deeply.  

 

“Stop.”  Seth kissed the dark circle beneath Finn’s eye.  He couldn’t stand this another moment. Talking about it last night had been one thing, but for his lover to bring it up now was just cruel.  “We can’t do this.” He kept skimming his fingertips against Finn’s jaw, skin dancing against the border between his beard and soft skin. “I’m not going to ruin your life.”

 

“Then listen to me, please.”  He grasped Seth’s hand desperately, pressing a gentle kiss against the red marks he’d bitten into his own skin.  “I don’t know what’s happening right now. Everything is so fucked up, and this… _ *you*  _ are the only thing that makes sense.”

 

“You don’t mean that.”  He wanted to be so strong for the Irishman, had every intention of letting him slip away gracefully.  But this wasn’t something he’d even considered. 

 

“And  _ you _ don’t get to tell me how I feel.”  Finn tried to smile, and it looked wrong.  A twisted, bitterly sad version of the grin he usually kept taped to his face that already looked ready to fall off.  “Don’t make me go back to pretending, because I don’t think I can anymore.”

 

Seth was torn.  Had he been slightly stronger, he would have forced the other man from his bed, because that was what the universe needed to happen.  This interlude between them, as monumental as it had been for him had no place in this world. He was Seth  _ Freaking _ Rollins.  The betrayer.  The spectre who considered himself barely human, throwing himself between wrestling, crossfit, and endless cups of coffee so he didn’t have to exist.  There were no place for human weaknesses in his life, not as long as he was being shoved as one of the main faces of the WWE. Everything he did was calculated.  Controlled. It was only the consuming and terrifying pull towards Finn that did not fit inside his neat little life. His hand shaking, Seth reached up to cup the back of the Irishman’s hair, loving the way the recently buzzed strands scratched at his palm.  Was loving Finn Balor a risk he was willing to take?

 

Slowly, almost as slowly as if all the air in the room had been replaced with rubber cement, Seth crossed the fractional distance to claim his mouth again.  Lips crashed against lips as tears flowed down both of their flushed cheeks, and Seth felt briefly that he was drowning in an ocean of the salt and intensity of their kiss.  “I can’t lose you,” he wept, mouth not able to seperate from Finn’s for even a second. He felt Finn clutch at him closer, weeping outright but even still, Seth could feel the smile against his lover’s lips.

 

There was no time for this.  They’d been in bed far too long this morning, and he knew that Finn and Bayley had to leave soon in order to get to Smackdown for the mixed match challenge. 

But for now...if only or a few more moments, he needed to touch his new lover.  To map his body with his hands; to become acquainted with skin he’d touched only a few hours ago because finally, everything had changed.  Last night had been an ending. A means to kill his dreams and make the pain that was consuming him after losing Dean’s friendship stop flaring.

 

This was a beginning.

 

Touches that once felt like goodbye seemed to bloom with the promise of forever.  He moaned low in his throat, clutching Finn’s wrists and pushing him back against the bed.  “Yes, love,” Finn sobbed, his mouth pressing and releasing against Seth’s. It felt like the Irishman was trying to devour him; to claim him with the same desperate intensity that a drowning man would oxygen.  Seth tried to ignore the word “love” that slipped so easily from his lips, even if hearing him lit up a part of his heart that he figured would be dark forever. He stared down at Finn’s body with wonder, his hand shaking as he pressed it against the older man’s defined abdominals.  

 

For once, probably the first and only time in his life, Seth was truly lost for words.  They seemed too hollow, too imperfect to fill this moment. He traced his fingers down Finn’s stomach, feeling his breath catch as he saw the evidence of just how much his lover wanted his touch.  “So fucking perfect,” he managed to gasp, brushing his shoulder against his face to wipe away the remnants of his tears. Finn grasped at his hair, keeping their mouths pinned together as his dexterous tongue fought for entrance into Seth’s mouth.  He didn’t feel worthy to touch him; wasn’t sure if he ever would. But if he was truly what Finn wanted, he wouldn’t deny him. Before he could lose the small bit of courage he managed to muster, Seth reached between his lover’s thighs to take him in hand once again.  Finn bucked up harshly, moaning and accidentally bumping their teeth together in his ecstasy. “I have you,” he managed to breathe against his lips, loving the way his lover’s skin seemed to burn sweetly against his. He was so focused on touching Finn, skimming his hand over and over his cock as fast as he dared that he almost screamed in tortured pleasure when he felt a firm hand against his own cock.  The sweetest fire seemed to burn within him as his lover matched his pace, touching him with the same desperate need that Seth did. He knew he wasn’t going to last long, not with Finn writhing beneath him. He almost wished it could last. To give him the leisurely worship that he deserved but for now, this was what they both needed. Finn tugged his hair even harder, his little gasps and whines making his insides blaze like a star about to go nova.  

 

Finn was the first to succumb to his orgasm as he thrust hard against him, sobbing in absolute relief as he spilled himself into Seth’s hand.   Desperately, he clutched at the other man’s sweaty back, slamming his face in the crook of Finn’s neck to muffle his screaming.  Because there was no way he could fight it; not when he was touching him and it all felt so good...no, better than good, and he couldn’t live without this burning; couldn’t live without him and

 

And…

 

And.

 

When his senses returned, the first thing Seth was aware of was Finn’s forehead resting so gently against his.  He could only stare at his lover in absolute wonder, skimming his clean hand over his cheek and down his neck. Finn smiled at him, and it was a genuine smile.  One he didn’t think he’d ever seen from his lover. His eyes were so clear and blue, blue like the clearest waters of a tropical ocean. He just wanted to cling to the Irishman forever, to just spend the rest of eternity wrapped in the warm haven of his well muscled arms.  

 

But now, there really wasn’t any time for that.  They’d pushed the limits far beyond what they could get away with this morning, and Seth realized, with a feeling of embarrassment that they were only about a half hour away from checkout time.  He had a flight to catch back to Iowa, where he some phone interviews but also a few blessedly empty days to just recharge. It would have made him nervous, knowing that he would have to talk to so many people about the failure that was his and Dean’s friendship.  It would be analyzed. Picked over and dissected like a frog in anatomy class. But laying here with Finn made him feel invincible. 

 

That is, until Finn’s phone rang again, and Seth actually felt his heart stop beating.  If it was Sami calling a second time, if he had to hear his new lover talk to the other man in his life and make plans that he had no part in, he wasn’t sure if his heart would be strong enough to stay together.  Because the fractured shards had pulled themselves together with each of the Irishman’s gentle touches and kisses, but even still he wasn’t sure if it would be strong enough to survive that. Thankfully, it turned out to be a very annoyed Bayley who had been waiting in the downstairs lobby for almost thirty minutes.  Finn sounded sufficiently contrite on the phone, but Seth felt his hated cackle slip from his lips at the look of absolute myrth on his lover’s face. “She’s going to kick your ass,” he smirked.

“Not scared of her.”  

 

“I am.”  They kissed again, and it was slow and sweet and seemed to stretch on forever.  “You’re going to have to be the one to get out of bed, because there’s no way I can.”

 

He saw the challenge in Finn’s eyes.  “Then you’re going to have to stop holding me.”

 

“Nope.  Not going to happen.  You’re going to have to wrestle wearing me like a backpack, or something.”  He tightened his arms around Finn’s impossibly tiny waist, tracing his fingers over and over the shallow recess of his bellybutton. 

 

“I think people would talk.”  His eyes were still teasing, but hidden in the little circles of blue and grey that ensnared his pupils was a hint of something darker.  Something that neither man wanted to acknowledge but both knew would not simply disappear. “Would that bother you?”

 

He wasn’t sure.  There were too many feelings, both good and terrified about this situation all wrapped together, knotted and looped like the strands of Christmas lights that he kept in his attic and usually ignored.  With Finn beside him, he wanted to scream about their relationship from the very rooftops. Together, they were invincible, but for the for the time being, that wasn’t an option. Until his feud with Dean died down and he dropped the IC belt.  Both of things put an enormous target on his back, and he couldn’t risk anything happening to his new lover. Even if those things weren’t an issue, if they were just Seth and Finn and not two larger than life figures that appeared on tv week after week, there was still Sami.  He may not have particularly liked the ginger, but he definitely could not fault him for loving Finn. Until he and the Canadian shaped shadow that loomed over their relationship was chased away, things didn’t feel permanent. “I guess I should ask you that.” He kept his face as neutral as possible, hating the little kernel of pain his words put in his lover’s smile.  “You and Sami kept things pretty under the radar.”

 

“I’m not proud of the way things turned out there.”  Finn brushed his delicate fingers against Seth’s scalp, making him shudder.  “I know I hurt him. And you.” Seth wanted to deny his lover’s claim to save face, but the gentle pressure kept his tongue locked tight in his throat.  “But I can’t be truly sorry about that if it’s the path that led you to me.”

 

There was more that needed to be said, and both men knew it.  There were many more hurts that needed to be assuaged, more assurances that they both felt the same way and neither would disappear.  But for right now, feeling the heartbeat of the man he had fallen in love with so long ago, nothing else mattered. After all, the rest of the world would keep for a few more moments.

*


	3. Bayley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the filler chapter. I was going to jump into Sami's perspective, but Bayley apparently wanted to get her two cents in about this relationship. This is going to hurt.

 

This was getting really old.

 

Bayley scrolled through her Instagram for the thousandth time that morning, trying to tamp down her annoyance at her friend.  She felt foolish as she sat in the lobby of the hotel as the other wrestlers checked out. Offered her sad smiles and disappeared to the various important things that they had to do.  Mickie actually seemed to take pity on her because she offered her a ride to the next arena with her and Alexa, despite the fact that the three had never been close enough to be travel buddies.  Which she appreciated, of course, but had to deny. Scowling, she sunk deeper into the plush chair, wishing that she knew who her friend had been rooming with last night. Since Sami was on the shelf, Finn was at the mercy of anyone who needed a roommate.  And she knew that that caused him pain. Both of them probably, with Sami feeling useless and scared for the future while Finn…

 

She almost couldn’t believe what she saw.

 

He was finally here.  But he wasn’t alone. _They_ were getting off of the elevator hand in hand, both wearing matching dopey smiles and sharing glances that spoke hidden words of a universe that existed between only them.  It would have been adorable, seeing two of her closest friends so happy, so lost in something that she knew was not meant for her eyes. Except for one thing.

 

Bayley pressed her lips tightly together, not trusting the words that would fall from her mouth if she spoke.  If she acknowledged what was going on in front of her, possibly what _had_ _been_ going on in front of her and she was too blind to see it, it would be disloyal.  Seth didn’t seem to notice or care, too consumed with the man beside him to see anything else.  But Finn.

 

All the light left his eyes as quickly as if she’d snapped off a circuit breaker.  He was smiling still; that wasn’t much of a surprise. She knew that he used his smiles and goofball attitude as armor, of sorts, against the rest of the world.  But his grin looked as fragile as glass, and if she pushed too hard it would shatter forever. And she’d have to live with that. She clenched her lips tightly together, her eyes drawn and stuck to their joined hands.  “Bayley.” Finn’s voice was pleading as he clutched at Seth tighter. Like he was a child begging a parent not to take a belief in Santa away.

 

“ _Don’t_.”  Her voice came out much harsher than she intended, making her friend flinch as if she’d struck him.  It made her feel strange, seeing this older man who eclipsed her in both age and build actually seem to be afraid of her.  Finn stared down at the scuffed toes of his Vans, his smile long forgotten. As if he was waiting for the ground to split open and swallow him whole.  

 

Seth cupped Finn’s cheek, and the gesture was so soft and sweet and she hated herself more because it melted some of the ice around her heart.  But just some. Thinking about Sami. Their good friend. The one who loved Finn with every fiber of his being, the one who was being thrown aside as if his heart didn’t matter.  Never could have she guessed that Finn had the capacity for such cruelty. He muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t catch, but knew that she was not supposed to. She had become the other to them.  And it fucking hurt.

 

The silence that stretched out between them felt like approval, and with each wordless second that passed, Bayley could feel her anger bubbling more and more.  “How could you?” she spat. Each word felt like venom as it dripped from her mouth, but she couldn’t bite them back. Didn’t _want_ to bite them back.  “Sami loves you.”

 

Finn’s seemed to get smaller, as if actually trying to retreat back in on himself to a state of nothingness.  “Can you not?” Seth was speaking to her finally, his eyes cold as they stared through her.

 

“You’re supposed to be his friend!” Bayley heard herself pitching up to a scream, and felt her cheeks burn when the eyes of the other people in the lobby all focused on her simultaneously.  “I hope you both know that this is going to kill him.”

 

She wouldn’t look at Finn.  Because if she did, if she acknowledged the pain that she’d inflicted on him, she knew she’d back down and apologize.  Seth skimmed his larger thumb down the center of Finn’s shaking palm, and just seeing the gentleness in his touch made her wince.  “This isn’t the time to talk about this.

 

Which was true. But she hated the fact that Seth had stuffed her very real concerns into a small package to be pushed down and not examined until it ruptured.  Bayley stuffed her phone into her purse, trying not to notice the soft kiss her gym buddy placed against Finn’s temple. “Call me?” His voice wavered and shook like a leaf caught in a gale, the bits of unwanted eye contact he shot her irritating her skin like mosquito bites.  

 

“As soon as I land.”  Once Seth left, escaping the fire in her eyes by slipping away into the waiting Uber, she finally turned around to glare at Finn.  And wished she hadn’t. There was no real comparison to the look in his eyes now. Even when he relinquished his title after Summerslam, as disappointed as he may have been and as close to the surface as his tears seemed to bubble, he still managed keep some sort of control.  Because everything would be all right; it had to. That’s what everyone had told him. But now.

 

The inferno of her anger abruptly fizzled as she placed a hand against his back.  “We should talk.”

*

They spent nearly an hour in the parking lot of the Starbucks just off of the interstate.  Rain ticked down the windows of the rental car as she tried to listen, tried to understand how everything she thought that she once knew about three of her dearest friends had been lies.  Finn absently played with the green straw stuck in his iced coffee, making the cubes clink in a soft counterpoint to his words. “I never meant to hurt him,” he said softly, the emotion in his voice cracking slightly along with a clap of thunder.  “I’d planned on pretending forever.”

 

She shook her head sadly, trying to swallow the materializing lump in her throat down with a large mouthful of peppermint tea.  “That isn’t fair to you or to Sami.”

 

“I know.  But honestly, what difference does it make?”  He lit up the homescreen on his phone, revealing a photo Bayley had taken of himself and Sami after moving into their apartment together nine months ago.  It had been a long day, even with four professional athletes moving and lifting and trying to merge two seperate lives, and by the time night fell, they were all exhausted.  Bayley’s fiance had offered to take the truck back to the rental company, and called her while she was alone in Finn and Sami’s new kitchen, trying to organize piles of action figures mixed with actually useful kitchen items.  He got a recommendation for what was supposed to be the best Thai place in the borough, and since she’d complained no fewer than two dozen times that she was hungry, he’d bring something back.  She’d gone into their bedroom to ask them what they wanted, and the sight that greeted her made her heart clench in happiness.

 

They were curled together atop their new mattress, the boxes that they were supposed to be unpacking forgotten.  Finn was asleep, totally and deeply lost to the world. But Sami. He lay propped up on his elbow, gazing down at his sleeping boyfriend wearing the softest, sweetest smile.  He looked so at peace. So at home, in this strange new place, as he slowly stroked Finn’s sleep-slack face. His fingers trembled as he brushed them down delicate cheekbones and across soft pink lips, and Bayley absolutely had to snap a photo to commemorate this moment.  Sami had been almost embarrassed when she sent it to the two of them, while Finn…

 

Her first thought, one that she was quick to push aside, was that he was terrified.

 

“He loves me,” Finn said simply.  He zoomed the image in to crop himself out of the photo, so that only Sami was visible.  Sami with the bright smile and gentle touch, the touch that even now through time and space she could almost see the love radiating out of.  It wasn’t a question, but the way Finn looked at her had her nodding her head in agreement. He did love Finn. There was no denying it.

 

“Do you love him?” She tried to keep all of the judgement out of her voice.  Finn was so close to breaking and Bayley didn’t want to be the one to push him over the edge.  Even if it was inevitable.

 

He took a long sip of his iced coffee, and she suspected it was to keep from having to answer her question right away.  Moments stretched and bled into each other, the air between them seeming to warp and bend beneath the awkwardness. She wasn’t sure if they’d ever to go back to the easy friendship they once shared.  Frankly, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. “I tried.” Finn turned his phone screen off, looking almost guilty. Like he was afraid that the sweet Sami from the image would hear his confession. “Or are you talking about Seth?”

 

She hadn’t been.  But when Finn spoke the other man’s name, Bayley could see a light in his eyes that had never been there around Sami.  Or when he spoke of Sami. Even as an outside observer, she could see that Finn was in love with Seth Rollins. “What are you going to do?”

 

It was the wrong question.  Finn leaned his head against the car window, his breath clouding the glass as he sighed.  “I don’t know. I know I have to tell Sami. But from there…”

 

Bayley took his hand, which was clammy and cold from the perspiration outside of the cup.  “You deserve to be happy.”

 

He laughed, and it was harsh, barking, and made her skin crawl.  “I don’t.” Finn lifted his head from the window to stare at her, and his eyes were still so lost.  “Sami has been good to me. He...he loves me so much, and you were right. If I leave him, I’ll kill him.”  He tried to drop her hand to wipe at his eyes, but Bayley clutched it tighter. He needed the comfort, even if he would never admit it.  

 

“But if you keep this up, it’ll kill you.  And Seth.” Bayley forced a smile of her own to her lips, trying to ignore the tears of her own that were threatening to fall.  “You don’t have to be a martyr.”

 

“Can a demon be a martyr?”

 

“Smart ass.”  Bayley skimmed her thumb across his knuckles, feeling her insides bloom like a flower as Finn’s pain seemed to be retreating.  “He’ll be hurt. But he’ll bounce back. You’re not that irresistible, Balor.”

 

“Not sure if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.”  He squeezed her hand lightly, letting their fingers slip apart as he nervously fumbled with the radio.  Things between them were not completely resolved. But there was enough of a calm to blanket the air, chasing away the shadows between them if only on the surface.  

*

In the days that followed, Bayley couldn’t tell if she was being the best possible friend to Finn and Sami, or the worst.

 

With Seth gone, Finn wanted to ditch the next few house shows to return to Brooklyn where Sami was waiting.  End the relationship before he lost his nerve and then return to a new life with his new boyfriend. Or whatever Finn and Seth considered themselves.  It wasn’t her place to interfere in any of this, only to pick up the pieces. Of Finn when he called her in a panic, having just booked a ticket home only to immediately call his credit card company to cancel the charges.  It wasn’t the right time, he insisted. Not with Sami getting ready to go under the knife in less than fourteen days. But things worked out for the best, because even if Finn did gather up the courage to go to Sami, he wouldn’t be home.  He’d gone back to Canada, to spend a little bit of time visiting his parents and Kevin before flying directly to Birmingham for his surgery.

 

Things became a new normal for Finn and Seth.  They obviously tried to keep things between them under wraps, but the love between them was so very obvious.  The teasing little messages Finn sent him on Twitter. The little touches they shared backstage in catering. Nothing obvious, just Seth’s hand against Finn’s back.  Or Finn’s hand against Seth’s wrist, his thumb swiping lightly across the tattoo. She found them curled together in a quiet little nook a bit away from the gorilla area.  Both fully dressed, but Seth clung to Finn tightly, as if holding him was the only thing that kept him grounded. Feeling an overwhelming sense of deja vu, Bayley grabbed her phone from her pocket to take a photo of this moment, and noticed that she had a message.

 

From Sami.

 

It wasn’t anything long or detailed, only a flight number and a plea to pick him up from the airport in a few hours.  Because he was on his way home to spend his remaining time before surgery with the man he loved. And not to tell him, because he wanted it to be a surprise.  Before Bayley could type a response, Sami sent her a photo. Of a small black band tucked inside a ring box. Not metal or adorned in anyway, but simple. Slender.  Easily hidden beneath gloves or tape.

 

Her stomach lurched hard.

 

Sami was going to propose.


	4. Sami

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desperate to see his lover, Sami decides to come home early to surprise him.
> 
> What he discovers breaks his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry. I uploaded the wrong version of this late last night, but here it is. Some things are a bit different here than in kayfabe. For the purpose of the story, Raw from November 5th was filmed in Brooklyn, not Manchester.
> 
> I am so sorry for what I did to Sami. But it's kinda a little happy? Maybe? I'm planning to add a second part to this series, set around Royal Rumble. I want him to have a happy ending too, damn it!

November 5th, 2018

 

“So you saw the MMC last week?”

 

Sami turned his attention back to the television, knowing what his friend was trying to do and hating it.  This was nothing new. Not since Kevin had been in the company, and it had only grown worse in the three years that he and Finn had been dating.  He knew that his best friend hated his lover. _Hated._ Him.  And he could never understand why.  

 

“We’re not talking about this.”  He felt his heart pulsing in his shoulder, the pain flaring like a drumbeat.  

 

But they would.  They always did. It didn’t matter what Sami said; how he begged and pleaded and insisted that he _just did not want to know_ .  There was never a way out for him.  Since Kevin found out that he was dating Finn...fuck, since Kevin even guessed that Sami could possibly be interested in dating Finn, the stories followed.  The links to interviews from Karl Anderson about the Good Brothers and their reign of debauchery through Japan. Stories, so many stories with Finn as the central player.   _“Slaying pussy like it's his job,”_ as the older man so eloquently put it.  Graphic details about the Irishman’s genitalia and the countless women and men who would do anything to chase it.  He listened to them all. Each word was a dagger into his psyche and he couldn’t figure out how this was the same man that he knew from NXT.  This was the same man that cuddled with him on the tour bus, Finn’s head on his shoulder and his warm breath tickling Sami’s neck. The man that lit up like a firework when they watched silly cartoons on Adult Swim at 3 AM, too keyed up from a match to even consider sleeping but melting into his arms and making him feel so warm.  So safe. Fingers would brush together on the couch as Family Guy or American Dad droned on in the background, and there was just no way... _no way_ this could be the same man who went through and just discarded so many partners.

 

Sami could never talk to Finn about this.  Couldn’t even wrap his mind around it, especially as the months blurred together and the older man became a constant presence in his life.  Kevin hated it, would subtily pick at Finn in a million little ways that his friend was too polite to call him out on. And the articles would continue in earnest, until Sami snapped.

 

_“You have to stop this bullshit! I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but Finn’s important to me!”_

_*eye roll* “He’s going to hurt you, you know.”_

_“You’re already fucking hurting me!”_

 

It was supposed to be a choice between Kevin’s constant attacks on the man he loved and having Sami in his life at all.  But Kevin stayed. Backed off, just a little; never sent him anything as overtly sexual as the Anderson interviews. Things should have been better.  But they weren’t. Kevin still managed to place a million little thoughts into his head, making him feel as though the relationship he and Finn had was doomed to fail.  He had always been close with Becky Lynch, hadn’t he? Trained her back in Ireland? And Bayley?

 

God, Bayley.  

 

Sami felt his fingers beginning to shake and he missed the solid weight of his ring box.  He’d been clutching it nearly nonstop in the month he and Finn had been apart. Mostly when his heart was throbbing, he missed his lover so much he could barely breathe and just existing from moment to moment was almost too much to bear. Knowing that Finn would soon be wearing this ring made him feel so close.  Even if they couldn’t be.

 

Kevin shrugged, scratching his dog behind the ears as Raw went unwatched in the background.  “I’m just saying. They did that Dirty Dancing thing from NXT.”

 

His shoulder pulsed harder as tears welled in his eyes.  He had no reason of being jealous of Bayley. She was engaged.  A close friend to both of them, and he knew deep down that she and Finn had no romantic interest in each other.  But seeing them together. Even if it was silly, even if nothing would ever come of it. It made his heart break.  They... _they_ could do the little things that he and Finn never could.  Finn’s _Balor Club For Everyone_ gimmick was one thing.  Having two men actually interact romantically together in public in front of a PG audience was something else entirely.  His eyes blurred as he tried to focus on the television, where Seth Rollins was attempting to defend his tag titles alone against the Authors of Pain.  “Can you get my tramadol?”

 

Kevin scoffed.  “Two fucked up knees, dude.  God, I can’t believe that fucker has _all_ the titles.  Ten bucks says he retains.”

 

“American dollars or Canadian?”  Sami traced his fingers down the painted Balor Club logo on the front of his hoodie, wishing more than anything to feel Finn’s skin.  “You know Vince is up on him.” Even if he couldn’t quite understand why. Seth Rollins was an asshole, plain and simple. Always so aloof.  He tolerated the others on the roster. The fans, to an extent. And okay, Rollins was talented. But so were many others. His lover, for example.  Rollins...that fuck _Rollins_ had been the one to injure Finn back at Summerslam, effectively killing any momentum his lover had and dooming him to a parallel existence to his own languishing away as a midcard.  Obviously he hadn’t done it on purpose, and he knew Finn didn’t hold any grudges. But Sami did.

 

He felt his lips twitch in the ghost of a smile as Ambrose seemed to appear out of nowhere.  Again. The commentary was just painful, with Graves needling Renee about what a terrible wife she must be not to understand what her husband was up to while she all but told him to fuck off.  It was a painful parallel to the Candice LeRae story over on NXT. Lazy writing really, with the assumption that so few people watched NXT that the same basic plot points could be rehashed from one show to the next.

 

Finn’s music hit.

 

Sami felt his heart leap into his throat.  His lover hadn’t told him about anything between himself and _Rollins_ , but he was running out to the ring, his beautiful ice blue eyes slightly crazed as he stared down Ambrose.  Who, not surprisingly, ran away, not even bothering to give Seth a second glance. “What the fuck is going on here?” Kevin was staring at him, but he couldn’t look away from the screen.  His tongue felt useless and heavy in his mouth; a thick clot of a thing unable to form words as he watched his lover reach down to pull Rollins up. Smile at him, his eyes so soft and bright and worlds away from the pure rage moments earlier.   _He_ smiled back, snaking an unworthy arm around Finn’s waist.  And Finn...his Finn had an arm around his neck. Fingertips lightly brushed against Seth’s exposed skin for just a moment before everything cut to red.  The Raw logo. Promises of a match with the Riott Squad versus Natalya.

 

It didn’t mean anything.  It didn’t. But he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind.  Finn’s fingers touching Seth’s thoat. Feeling the skin of someone else, someone who was decidedly not himself.  His own fingertips burned, burned and throbbed along with his shoulder as he thought about the sensation of _Rollins_ being the last person that his lover had touched.  It was almost primal in its intensity, this need for Finn to touch him.  He needed his skin to be the one that his beautiful lover had last touched, the soft electricity blazing between them and connecting them forever and not...fucking not Seth Rollins.

 

“Can you take me to the airport?” The words fell out of his mouth before he could even think of changing his mind.

 

“Sami…”

 

“Fine, I’ll take a fucking Uber.”  He climbed up onto unsteady feet, trying to ignore the tears he knew that he could not stop.  “I need to get home.”

 

Kevin looked wary.  As though pulled in two different directions, two that Sami didn’t care to puzzle out.  Because they didn’t matter. Nothing else did. He had to go back to Brooklyn. Thank fuck the WWE was in New York for the next two days.  “It’s not that I don’t want to help you, but I can’t drive. And my wife’s already in bed.”

 

“I already said it’s fine.”  It was. Everything was, because there wasn’t a problem here.  He had no reason to be jealous of anyone, not Bayley and certainly not Seth _Freaking_ Rollins.  Finn loved him.  He did. They’d spoken the words so many times and he’d get home to find his lover waiting for him.  Confused at his sudden appearance, but Sami would give him the ring and they’d live happily ever after.  Finn’s arms would be his home. He grabbed his overnight bag from the corner of Kevin’s living room, reaching into the zipped pocket to pull out the ring.  His lifeline. If he opened it, it’d be sitting there. Small and perfect and from the moment he saw it, he knew that he had to buy it for his lover. Even if they’d never discussed marriage.  Even if it was the one thing he truly wanted, knowing that Finn would always be his and not disappear.

 

“Sami.”  His best friend’s voice was halting.  Gentle. Like he was attempting to calm a skittish animal.  “Think about this for a second. Why...fucking _why_ do you need to go flying back to New York now? Because you saw Finn in the ring with Seth?”

 

That was it, in a nutshell.  But there was also so much more.  So much insecurity, a desperation to be with his lover that had been growing steadily even before he had any right to call Finn his.  He missed him with all his heart, all his breath. “This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” He wiped his eyes with the frayed sleeve of his hoodie, impatiently watching the little blip on his cell phone showing how far away the driver was to Kevin’s house.  His body pulled tighter, a spring taut and about to snap from the pain that threatened to drown him. Kevin had the decency to look away, his flushed with embarrassment and something else. “Those stories about Finn with other people. You’ve made it clear that you never believed that he could really be mine.  That he was always looking for someone better. That he was always worthy of someone better.”

 

“That’s not-”

 

“It is, and you know it.”  Sami threw the duffle bag over his shoulder, the fire ripping through his injury and down his core but the pain didn’t bother him.  In fact, he almost welcomed it. “Congratulations. I’m terrified.”

 

“ _Fucking listen to me!_ ” His friend moved with an almost scary quickness for a man with two destroyed knees.  “You are better than him! I don’t know how to get you to see it, but since _Devitt’s_ been in your life, you’ve changed.  I barely know you anymore. The real Sami Zayn...my Sami Zayn isn’t like this! Crawling across the fucking border because you’re upset that the man you’re fucking touched someone else...god, it’s not endearing and it’s not romantic.  It’s pathetic, Sami.”

 

“Then I guess I’m pathetic.”  He dropped his head down to look at his phone, refusing to let Kevin see his eyes.  Because he didn’t want to let him believe for one second that these tears were for him.  He wasn’t worth it. Nothing else was. All that he needed, the only thing that could possibly make him whole was being back in Finn’s arms.  And the rest of the world would disappear. There would be no fucking “ _Big Dick Devitt_ ” and no sweet little moments with Bayley and it wouldn’t matter if his lover knew what the skin on the back of Seth’s neck felt like.  Was it ticklish, like his own was? If Finn kissed him there, nuzzled and sucked lightly at the skin, would Seth giggle and melt against him until the rest of the world faded away? He felt his heart pulling tighter, as though a pair of invisible hands had grabbed either side of it.  It was together now. Fraying slightly, with jagged tears only beginning to shred it like an old piece of cloth. Finn’s touch. His gentle touch and his kiss and his love would keep him whole. “Tell the kids goodbye from Uncle Sami.”

 

Kevin leaned heavily against the front door, his eyes huge and desperate.  “Don’t do this. Please.”

 

“I’ll call you when I land.” Even if he wouldn’t.  Even if he knew, knew in his heart of hearts that this would be it for the friendship that had been his touchstone for almost two decades. Almost scary how easy it was to rid himself of it, like it was a switch that could be flipped.  No more late night phone calls. Silly inside jokes about people from so far back in their past that he could barely place a name to a face. Driving around Philadelphia early in the mornings, their pockets crammed with the eighteen or so measly dollars that they made setting up and tearing down a ring and doing insane stunts he still couldn’t believe they came away from unscathed.  Terrible costumes and worse gimmicks. And pancakes. So many pancakes at all hours of the day and night, from diners with forgettable names and endless cups of coffee that were the only thing that could keep them going. All of it. Just gone.

 

So he left.  

 

Pulled up his hood to hide his distinctive hair and tried to keep himself small.  Invisible. Something he never really thought he could ever be. He knew that others thought that he was always too _much_.  Too happy.  Too cheerful and excitable, ready to fling himself into an animated conversation with pretty much anyone about anything that he had a passing interest in.  Kevin joked that he was like a chihuahua, dancing and begging for the tiniest scraps of attention from the world around him. But tonight, all he wanted was to be alone.  From the car to the airport, and the hassle of attempting to buy an international plane ticket (even if JFK International was less than two hours away) for a flight that was taking off in forty-five minutes. Which meant that getting through security would be a desperate game of beat the clock.  He kept his head down. Hands stuffed in his pockets as he skimmed his thumb over and over the top of the ring box with such intensity he wondered if the velvet would be rubbed away by the time he gave it to Finn. For a horrible moment, he was sure that the TSA agent at the metal detector recognised him and he’d have to launch into a tedious back and forth when all he wanted to do was rush off to his gate.  It made him feel like such an asshole because he genuinely cherished his fans. Loved their enthusiasm for him, since it was their support and dedication to his career that kept him relevant. As long as people cared, McMahon could never really bury him. But she must have seen the pain in his eyes or his rapidly approaching departure time on his boarding pass because their interaction was cut mercifully short.  

 

Sami curled up in a molded plastic chair a bit away from the other passengers, staring down at his phone as the large red numbers on the departure board ticked slowly to 12 AM.  He knew Finn hadn’t texted him, not since earlier that morning. But he opened their messages, suddenly needing to hear from him so badly that the two hands clutching his heart pulled at it a little harder.  Making it tear a little more. He read through their thread of old messages, hating himself for being so strange and clingy and awkward. No more. When he returned home, when he fell into Finn’s arms and begged him to be his husband, he’d change.  Be someone normal, not plagued by the demons of his own insecurities. A notification flashed, alerting him that Kevin had sent him two texts in rapid succession. But he didn’t care. Barely felt it, as his body felt hollowed and cold from the memory of Finn’s hands

 

 _//so gentle and strong and_ his _, should be his, not Seth’s.  Seth had no right to feel the touch of his lover, he wasn’t worthy of it.  And neither did Bayley//_

 

on the nape of Rollins neck.  And wasn’t _his_ hand against the bare skin of Finn’s waist? He couldn’t remember, and the more the tried to think back to examine the moment, the more it became twisted and distorted into something else.  His fingers shaking, he began typing out a message to his lover. He’d wanted to tell him what was happening, he was on his way home back to their bed and the safety of Finn’s chest. But he was afraid.  What if Finn told him not to come home? To stay tucked up in Montreal and not bother to come home until his shoulder was pieced back together because only then would he not be broken. It was an impulsive decision, but it was one of the few things that he was so sure of.  No doubts, lingering and picking at the back of his consciousness the way most of his daily decisions tended to. Finn was his home. He needed to get home. And if he heard anything to the contrary, Sami didn’t think he’d survive it.

 

Instead, he typed up a quick message to Bayley.  As uncertain as she made him feel sometimes, Sami knew that she would always support him.  She was one of his dearest friends, the oasis of safety in the churning storm that were his uncertainties as to whether or not Finn would ever love him.  The people Finn’d dated before seemed to suggest otherwise. Those in his past were beautiful, perfect and barely real and he felt like an ugly duckling trying to masquerade among swans.  Kevin clearly didn’t think it could ever happen, and had never sugar coated it. Even if that was the one thing Sami needed to hear to keep from collapsing. But Bayley. She was the one...the one person in the entire universe that allowed him to dwell in the narrative that perhaps he and Finn could end up together.  He wasn’t a fool for being in love with someone so perfect and unattainable. She’d promised, and he could hear the sincerity burning in her every word, that Sami had a chance. And in her gentle assurances, he found the strength to act on his crush.

 

 _“Hope you’re not mad at me,”_ he started, pressing his injured shoulder harder against the back of the chair.  Which was foolish; it hurt and made his stomach clench hard in anguish and there was no way to put out the fire of this pain.  Not with his pills safely packed and most likely already under the plane with the rest of the checked baggage. But it was only this that allowed the grasping hands on his heart to stop pulling.   _“I’m coming home.  Pick me up at JFK at 1:30 this morning? I owe you big time.  And please, don’t tell Finn.”_  He snapped open the lid of Finn’s ring box, tracing the tip of his index finger around the interior of the band and trying to pretend the black silicone band was warm.  Heated up after being pressed against his lover’s skin. On an impulse, he snapped a photo of it, sending it off to her before she responded. It was manipulation, pure and simple.  If he let her in on his secret, maybe she’d be more inclined to drive from midtown to Brooklyn in the middle of the night.

 

The attendant at the gate made the announcement he’d been fantasizing about from the moment he left Kevin’s house.  The flight was boarding. Goodbye Canada. Since he had two legitimately injured arms and the flight was pretty much empty, they let him slip onto the plane with the rest of the priority passengers.  Home. He’d be home so so soon.

*

The lights of downtown Manhattan seemed to chase by them like a shower of stars as Bayley drove through the relatively empty streets.  Not completely empty, of course, such a thing was not possible in a city as crammed full of humanity as New York was. But they were at least moving more frequently than they were stopped, and she had yet to dust off her mantra about how much she hated city driving that she usually brought up when she visited them.  There was something off about her. Granted, it was also close to two in the morning, but even still, Bayley did not seem like her usual far too cheerful self. There were shadows clinging to the periphery of her soft smile, and he couldn’t help but notice how quickly they spread when she wasn’t making direct eye contact with him.  And she seemed far too focused on her phone. She tried to keep it mostly hidden, but at the red lights and small pockets of traffic, she scowled down at the little rectangle as if it had betrayed her.

 

“Everything okay?” Sami didn’t know how he was able to force these words out past the grasping fingers of anxiety that threatened to choke him.  Everything was not okay, not in any possible shape. He’d ended a friendship with his best friend of twenty years and he’d just spent just short of ninety minutes on a plane fleeing his home country because he missed his lover, he missed Finn so much and he couldn’t keep existing until he knew that _his_ skin had burned away the remnants of Seth Freaking Rollins from the Irishman’s fingertips.  And he was pathetic. Couldn’t forget that.

 

Bayley made a happy little noise to the affirmative, but it was glaringly false.  He knew it. He could feel it deep within him and it empowered the hands that squeezed at his heart to pull a little tighter.  Now Sami could feel it beginning to separate and tear, each strand ripping painfully apart. “How was Montreal?”

 

Neither person in the car had even the slightest bit of interest in pretending that this was a conversation that they wanted to have.  He was too tired. Far too tired and his chest hurt and the only thing that would keep it from tearing completely was Finn’s touch. Sami opened his phone, still pointedly ignoring the notes from Kevin to reread the conversation he and his boyfriend had almost eighteen hours ago.  No updates. No little “good night and I love you and miss you,” even if it was an exchange they’d been having twice daily throughout the entirety of their relationship. He felt a small stirring of hope within the ripping mess in his chest at the naive thought that yes, it was possible that Finn had sent him something in the brief time that he was in the air and cell service was unreliable.  There may be messages and photos and even a voicemail with the accent he so missed just waiting in the cloud somewhere to come slamming into his phone at a random moment in the future. “So, um, how’s Finn? I...I didn’t hear anything from him after the show.”

 

For a brief moment, all of her false cheer seemed to fall away, leaving her equal parts furious and afraid.  “That’s what I’d like to know. I’ve been trying to text him for fucking hours now, but-” She slammed her mouth closed, her eyes glassy and hooded with the attempt to reconstruct her shell as quickly as she could.  “I’m sure that he’s fine.” Bayley’s voice was so stuffed full of happiness and mirth and all of the other aspects that made up the character of Bayley Martinez that Sami was sure that it would shatter. Pop like an overinflated balloon and deafen them both.  “Long night for him too, you know? He’s probably asleep with his phone off.”

 

It sounded so logical.  The sort of explanation that would satisfy anyone who heard it.  But that did not extend to the invisible fingers of pain that continued to encircle his heart, pulling tighter until he winced and squeezed his eyes shut to hide the anguish.

*

Sami and Finn had never been the neatest of housekeepers.

 

Not that they were _filthy_.  Their apartments had always been kept free of dirt and food trash, pretty much anything that would attract rodents.  With Finn gone so frequently and his shoulders having only the barest of functionality, they had a cleaning service come in once a week to tackle the worst of the messes.  But there were always piles. Of clothes, some having never made it into the washing machine while others were clean but had yet to be folded and put away. Of his records and video games.  He’d been getting better about making sure the correct disk went into the holder, but that was about as far as his consciousness extended. Of Finn’s legos. They were kept together at least vaguely by project, but since he tended to get a bit bored and liked to jump between projects, things had a habit of not getting completed for a long while.  Or put away ever.

 

There was something very wrong here.

 

It wasn’t just the scattered Chinese food containers, half full with the contents lazily falling out onto the coffee table below.  Finn’s order of steamed chicken and broccoli, the sauce on the side and the brown rice largely untouched. It was the only thing he’d ever ordered.  So then why, why was there a congealed mass of what looked like over fried chicken drenched in an overly sweetened sauce beside it? Why was there a small rolling suitcase flung haphazardly in their hallway? He was sure he’d never seen it before, the zipper partially open and some of the items inside threatening to escape.  

 

Or the shoes.  Finn’s vans, the custom ones with the Balor Club laces that he got him for an anniversary present last year he recognised.  The Chuck Taylors a few sizes bigger than his lover’s, he didn’t. Sami felt his breath lock in his lungs, lock so tightly that he actually clutched at his throat to force it down when he noticed the socks beside them.  And the shirt, twisted inside out with a band insignia that he didn’t want to look too closely at. Because he knew which shirt was Finn’s, the vintage style Deadpool shirt that lay just a few inches away from the other.  

 

“Sami,” He felt Bayley behind him, but he couldn’t look at her.  Couldn’t see anything, not with the tears that were streaming down his face.  “We shouldn’t-”

 

He had to.

 

The hands began tearing at his heart again in earnest, ripping it more and more with each step he took.  The hallway from their living room to their bedroom wasn’t very long, only a few feet maybe, but it seemed to stretch out forever.  He slumped against the wall to hold himself up, the framed _Force Awakens_ poster rattling from the force of his weight.  He knew Bayley was still talking to him, but his brain couldn’t process her words.  She was concerned. Probably closer to terrified for him, and he could hear that her voice was thick with tears that she tried so hard to fight for his benefit.

 

And.

 

Sami’s heart ripped in two.  

 

The two figures in _their_ bed.  Mouths joining and releasing, greedy and hungry and giving and taking.   Finn was bent nearly in half, his legs tight around Seth’s

 

_//can’t be Seth, can’t be, Finn wouldn’t hurt me to be with him, the man who nearly ended his career and they aren’t even friends, they aren’t//_

 

shoulders.  Seth was moving frantically against his lover, muttering words of such sweetness that no other person had a right to speak to Finn other than himself.  His large hand settled in the closely cropped hair, fist tight as Finn’s beautiful eyes flew opened in tortured pleasure to…

Their eyes locked.

 

“Sami!” That got Rollins attention, who looked like a deer caught in the headlights.  Seeing the two of them. Even though they both had the decency to look horrified at the situation, Sami wept even harder at the realization that they were still clinging tightly to each other.  Everything hurt. His shoulder but mostly his heart; his absolutely destroyed heart that seemed to be bleeding out all of his hopes and dreams of a life with Finn. He was crying. Crying so hard and it should have been shameful, but he couldn’t even attempt to stop.  Because if he was crying he was breathing, and he was too broken to remember how to do that on his own.

 

“Why the _fuck_ didn’t you check your phone?!” Bayley was outright screaming, her eyes jumping between Seth and Finn.  He couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t remain standing. Couldn’t keep the fragments of his heart beating.  Couldn’t acknowledge that Kevin was right; the man he still loved with every last bit of his broken soul didn’t feel the same.  His finally gave out completely and he fell to the carpet, barely able to do more than make choked gasps as he struggled to breathe.

 

It killed him.  Even after seeing his betrayal, even with the memory of Finn being claimed by someone else in a way he’d never allowed Sami to do, feeling his lover’s arms close tightly around his heaving chest brought him peace.  Silenced the demons that somehow had Kevin’s voice, all screaming and scratching at his brain. “I am so sorry.” He hated himself, hated himself so much as he pressed his face against Finn’s chest, still feeling just a kernel of peace even as his body seemed to be shutting down from the pain.    

 

Distantly, he heard Finn asking Bayley to take him out to the living room, but he didn’t want to go.  Didn’t want to leave his arms because then everything would hurt again, everything would be so wrong and he’d have to acknowledge it.  She knelt beside Finn, her hand against Sami’s back even though he wanted to swat it away. No one should be touching him. No one but Finn.  “C’mon,” she said gently.

 

“But Finn-”

 

“I need a few minutes.”  His brogue was so flat. Expressionless.  It probably would have scared him, had he not still been pressed against his heart.  Maybe his own would reform. “God, we have to talk.”

 

The ring sat heavily in his pocket.  Taunting him. Reminding him of the life he would never have.

 

When Finn dropped his arms, Sami actually sobbed in anguish.  He couldn’t stop staring at _their_ bed, the one they bought together when they moved.  It had been a little point of contention, with Finn wanting to spend far too much money on a top of the line mattress.  Sami argued that they were rarely ever home so it shouldn’t matter, but his lover was insistent. Considering what they did for a living and the likely situation that at least one of them very well might end up with an injury, comfort was key.  Eventually Sami caved. And didn’t even attempt to talk Finn out of spending way too much money at Pottery Barn Kids for several sets of _Star Wars_ queen size sheets.  He could never sleep in it again.  

 

Seth was still in it.  On his side.

 

Bayley wrapped an arm around his waist as best she could, his entire body shaking as he forced himself up to unsteady feet.  She’d tried to lead him over to their couch, but he couldn’t be that far away from Finn. Someone, and he liked to think that it was Seth because his love wouldn’t be that cruel, closed the door behind them.  Sami made it a few more steps before falling again, leaning against the wall as he tried as best as he could to muffle his sobs. He needed to hear this.

 

_“Sweetheart, you have to calm down.  Sami’s-”_

_“Fucking broken.  Sami’s fucking broken, and I’m the one who destroyed him.”_

_“He’s not destroyed.  Hurt, yeah, but he’ll be okay.”_

_“You can’t say that, not about Sami.”_  Sami could hear the tears in his brogue, and if he was a bit more with it, he would have begged Finn not to cry.  But then again, why should he be the only one who was? _“God, I never deserved this.  I never deserved to be this happy with you.”_

_“What are you saying?”_

Someone sobbed, and he wasn’t sure if it came from Finn, Seth, or himself.  Possibly the three of them. _“I love you.  With the entirety of my heart.  But it’s not enough. Because as much as I love you, he loves me just as deeply.  I can’t break his heart to save mine.”_

Seth’s voice was desperate; harsh and scratchy and it almost hurt to hear.  But he couldn’t care. Because if he felt pity for this man, the one who wanted to take away all he loved, it was like giving Finn permission to hurt him.   _“What about me? Goddamnit Finn, *I* love you.  I begged...fucking begged you not to disappear and to be mine.”_

 _“You don’t need me Seth.  You’re fucking perfect and you could have anyone.  Just…”_ Finn drew a shuddering breath that Finn could actually feel in his bones.   _“Let me go.”_

_“I don’t know how.”_

 

Neither did Sami.  That was the one thing that they had in common.  

 

After a few more moments, Finn came out of the bedroom, staring down at Sami in shock.  “That can’t be good for your shoulder.” He’d at least put on a pair of pajama pants, and based on the way they fell low around his slim hips, they were Sami’s.  “Let me help you.” He felt himself melt against Finn again, his warmth seeping into his skin through his shirt, trying to regrow his heart the way the sun would a plant.  Sami tried not to see the dark mark that had been sucked into the bumpy valley of his collarbone.

 

He almost didn’t want Finn to touch him after hearing his confession to Seth a few moments prior.  Knowing that his lover

 

_//can he even call that Finn anymore? because he loves Seth.  not you. it’s never been you//_

 

loved the other man with a fierceness that could never apply to himself made him feel...empty.  As if everything that had been warm and bright and _theirs_ had been scooped out and discarded like seeds from a pumpkin.  He was a hollow shell, his sides scraped as every last bit of the hope he once had for their future was forcibly removed.  Sami looked over at Finn, feeling his tears stream faster at the look of absolute blankness in the older man’s face. He was smiling, of course.  But it wasn’t a smile he’d ever seen directed at him. It was the same creeping grin he sometimes wore on his way down to the ring as he tried to make the fans happy even though he knew that the match wouldn’t end well for him.  He would lose. Or perhaps win, but on a technicality that allowed his opponent to look so strong at his expense.

 

Finn led him over to their couch, gently setting him down in a little nest of throw pillows to keep from from putting too much pressure on his injured shoulder.  In the soft light of their desk lamp, the mark on his chest seemed to be much darker. And there were others too, some on his pale shoulders and on the side of his neck and he was sure, and it hurt so badly, that there were others that he just couldn’t see.  “Aren’t you cold?” The Irishman looked at him in obvious confusion, but Sami couldn’t stop looking at the marks that marred his skin. Each of them screamed to the world that he wasn’t enough; Sami would never be enough for Finn.

 

More tears followed.  So many, more than he would have thought it possible for his body to produce.  After a moment of just watching him cry, Finn seemed to notice what was really going on.  “I’ll get a hoodie.” Finn gently tucked a pillow into his arms as a poor substitute for a living, breathing lover so he could make his escape.  “Is Bayley still here?”

 

He nodded, squeezing the fluffy penguin pillow as hard as his shoulder would allow.  “She went downstairs to get my bag out of the car. I don’t think she wanted me to see her cry.”  Which was foolish, because he was shedding copious amounts of tears. But Bayley needed to be strong for everyone, even if it meant having to shove aside her own weaknesses to haunt her later.  

 

“God, Sami, I never wanted to hurt you.”  Finn sat beside him, an acceptable distance of a cushion left between them for a buffer that Sami didn’t want.  The fact that he was wearing his old InZayn hoodie was not lost to him, and the fragments of his heart lurched painfully at the hope that this meant that maybe...just maybe Finn still loved him.  Was choosing him.

 

_“As much as I love you, he loves me just as deeply.  I can’t break his heart to save mine.”_

 

The ghost of Finn’s words settled heavily over the room, deeply contradicting the sweet platitude he’d just spoken.  “Do…” Sami’s words hurt as he shoved the past his lips. They would break him, tear him further down until he was beyond repair.  His life. The years he spent with Finn, clinging to him and cherishing every millisecond that they were able to spend together were about to disappear.  “Do you love him?”

The sudden boldness of the question knocked the numb, shaking smile off of Finn’s lips.  But only for a moment. “It doesn’t matter.” He grabbed Sami’s hand, and he hated how violently his own shook.  Like Finn’s skin against his was causing a chemical reaction that he didn’t know how to breathe without. “What I did to you was inexcusable, and I swear I will never, _never_ let you feel that way again.”  

 

This was it.  Finn’s hand against his, their skin brushing so gently together.  Brushing and teasing up his repaired shoulder with a featherlight touch that made him feel so much, he needed to cry.  To let the last bit of his pain seep out because _this_ here, Finn beside him and touching him and now his hand was against his heart, massaging his chest gently.  So gently. “I won’t break,” Sami forced himself to breathe, closing his eyes to slow the flow of his tears.

 

“I won’t let you.”  There was an intense determination in Finn’s voice, and it should have made him feel safe.  Pulling the shards of his heart back together with each gentle stroke of his fingertips. “I will never leave you, Sami.”  

 

He wanted to fall headfirst into this.  Finn’s touch. The words he wanted to believe with all that remained of his broken heart.   _This_ was going to be his, as he always dared hope.  He and Finn. Together. It was the only thing he wanted.  Prayed for.

 

But it wasn’t what Finn needed.

 

It took everything, every last clinging bit of resolve he still possessed in his shattered spirit, but he managed to pull away from the touch that was making him whole.  Because deep down, in the same dark place that Kevin was able to so exploit with his cruelty about Finn’s past, he knew this was wrong. Sami did truly love Finn. Loved him more that he could even begin to process, it was so deep and consuming.  Heaven would be nothing more than an eternity in his arms. And it was because of this love, this drive for Finn that was as much of a part of himself that was as integral to his survival as his breath, that he knew. Knew he’d have to let him go.  Finn looked absolutely stunned at Sami’s action, and when he opened his arms again, he could only shake his head. “I can’t do that.”

 

He missed Finn’s hand against his heart so badly.  Because it was shattering. Again.

 

The Irishman opened his mouth to speak, but Sami was able to shake his head, his shoulder throbbing and practically screaming at him for being so foolish.  “I love you. Which is why I can’t let you do this.” He reached over to skim his fingers down Finn’s face; the full lips he loved so much and the high cheekbones and the slightly scratchy but neatly kept beard.  He had to keep it together now. He could fall apart later, but if he loved Finn, truly loved him as much as he believed he did, he had to do this for him. “I’m letting you go.”

 

Hope replaced the clinging blankness in the ocean blue eyes, which made it even harder for Sami to keep from breaking down.  Finn wasn’t trying to be cruel, and he knew it. But still, the emotion, so pure and unhidible made him feel worthless. “What are you talking about?”

 

At that moment, Seth appeared from the bedroom, his dark eyes huge and red as he grabbed his shoes off of the floor.  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, staring down at his suitcase and not looking towards Finn. Almost as if he couldn’t, because seeing the man that Sami knew they both loved so much would break him.  “Please believe me. I won’t...Sami, I promise there’s not going to be anything else between us.”

 

But there was.

 

Even if both Seth and Finn were able to fight it, for his sake.  Even if his lover remained faithful, stayed by his side forever in their little bubble of love and need.  Deep down, and he could see it clearly in the despair on both of their faces, Finn and Seth loved each other.  Possibly as much as he loved Finn.

 

“You love him.”  Not a question, just a blatant fact.  Spoken with as much emotion as if stating the time.  It was 2:15 in the morning, and Seth was in love with Finn Balor.  Seth nodded, the slow movement of his head shattering the invisible dam that held back his own tears.  Finn tensed beside him, and Sami was sure that if he hadn’t been sitting beside him, he would have rushed over to comfort Seth.  “I love him too. Which is why I can’t let him hurt like this.” Sami pressed his lips lightly against Finn’s for a moment. Just a moment, in which to say goodbye to the man he loved.  Cherished with everything that remained in him, every beat of his heart, every breath in his lungs. “I can’t be what you need,” he wept, lips brushing over and over Finn’s as he spoke. “I wish I could more than anything, but I can’t.”  He felt Finn’s hand on his face, brushing away the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. Maybe never would. But for this man, it would be worth it. “Seth can.”

 

“Are you sure about this?” Finn’s words were little more than warm breath against his cheek, the finality of their goodbye seeping into his pores to flood through his body.  

 

“No.”  Sami smiled, even laughed in spite of himself.  “But I can’t break your heart to save mine.”

 

The older man sobbed once, his hands clutching at his back even as Sami’s soft shirt seemed to slip through his shaking fingers.  “I do love you,” he muttered, and Sami couldn’t keep a soft whimper from escaping his lips at the featherlight sensation of his fingers against his scalp.

 

“I know.”  He pressed his face against the penguin pillow to soak up the tears he couldn’t wipe away fast enough.  “But if anyone asks, I broke up with _you_.”

 

That got a laugh out of the three of them, and even though Sami hated and would always hate Seth’s nasal cackle, it didn’t make the hair on the back of his neck stand up anymore.  Finn squeezed his hand once, and he nodded, giving him the permission he’d never thought he’d be strong enough to. Finn...the man he loved, the man he would probably always love, fell into Seth’s arms, his head against the other man’s neck.  They remained that way for a moment, and even though seeing it made him sob harder, somehow, he didn’t feel broken. Because deep down, he knew that Finn loved him. And it didn’t matter what Kevin said. What anyone else on the roster thought when they saw this and even what the clinging shadows of uncertainty tried to grasp at him late at night.  He wasn’t pathetic.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing WWE. I want to make it clear that this isn't a real people fanfic. I'm writing about Seth, Finn, and Sami, not Fergal, Colby, and Rami. I'm probably going to get Finn and Sami's indy careers totally wrong. Sorry in advance. 
> 
> I'd come into this fic with the intention of a Sami/Finn endgame. But that's not happening this time. Poor Sami.


End file.
